Ex-Husband
“Annie!” called out a man’s voice from behind meone I knew so well it ached to remember.
I flinched, shrinking inwards, and quickened my pace along the pavement, afraid to look back.
“Annie, wait, it’s youI know it is!” The footsteps behind me grew faster until a hand reached out, not roughly but firmly enough to stop me by the shoulder.
“Annie, are you deaf or just pretending? It’s me, Edward.”
Gathering my composure, I spun around sharply. My lips parted in disbelief as I whispered, “Good heavens, Edward I thought your voice was just a phantom in my mind. Howhow can it be? This isnt possible…”
“Why shouldn’t it be possible?” My former husband grinned at me with the same lively smile he’d worn in his youth. “Am I forbidden to return to my old hometown?”
“Back from where?” I stammered, utterly confused. “You you were dead. At least, thats what they told me.”
“Dead?” Edwards mouth drooped in shock. “Me?”
“Well, yes. About half a year after our divorce, when you left for London, your friend told me you” I faltered, then pressed on, “went off the rails in that big city and died, penniless, under a bridge.”
“And who told you such a story?”
“Benson. Your closest mate. He started fluttering around me not long after you lefttried to court me, really. I gave him short shrift, mind you. Thats when he told me you were gone.”
“The scoundrel,” Edward gave a hoot of laughter. “So he wasn’t joking all those years ago.”
“What do you mean, joking?”
He shrugged. “He said something like, Well, now youve left Annie, Ill take care of her. Sounded like a jest, but after that he never answered my calls, and never wrote back when I lived in that first little flat. Back then, no one had mobiles or emailwe wrote proper letters, used the old landline. Ive not a clue where he ended up. Or what became of him.”
“Oh, he passed on,” I said with a small shrug. “Its been yearsmust be five at least since the funeral.”
“I say…” Edwards face turned sombre. “Gone Hed still have some good years left in him. Well, well.” He suddenly flashed that old smile again. “So many years since our divorce, yet you look just the same. As stunning as ever.”
“Oh, dont flatter me,” I laughed, waving him off. “Im as ordinary as a cup of tea.”
“I heard from a mutual friend you remarried,” Edward said, his gaze gentle. “And youve childrentwo, correct?”
“Thats right, a boy and a girl. Both grown up now and flown the nest. Im a grandmother, twice over, would you believe!”
“My word! Hows your husband these days?”
“Getting on well,” I said with a wry smile. “In his new family, that is. Im a free woman now.”
“I see,” Edward nodded, understanding in his eyes. “We men are fools, always searching for something new, never noticing what we have is already enough. The things we chase are often there right beside us.”
“What brings you back, then?” I asked. “Is it business, or?”
“It’s for good this time, Annie. For good,” he sighed, something heavy in it. “My wife died not long ago, and I realised I belonged at home. To tell the truth, I just couldnt breathe theredoctors say the airs wrong for me now, age and all that. My wife had the same trouble in the end. Asthma. I tried to get her to move, but she was London-born through and throughsaid she couldnt do without the city. And now”
Tears glimmered in his eyes.
“So here I am, wandering the roads of my youth, thinking about where to settle down. The towns changed so much in thirty years. Any ideas where I might nest?”
“Where are you staying now?” I asked.
“At the inn, where else?” he replied.
“Youve no family to take you in?”
He pulled a face. “You know I could never stand being a burden. They’ve set routines, and Id only upset the apple cart.”
“Would you care to stay with me?” I blurted suddenly, nerves catching up with me, so I added, “As a lodger, I mean.”
Edward hesitated, looking uncertain and a little shy. He heaved a sigh.
“I might like that, Annie, truly. But I just cant. Ive always felt guiltyfor thirty years, mindleaving you as I did.”
“What guilt?” I blinked in surprise.
“The ordinary kind,” he shrugged. “I left you, after all. That sort of thing doesnt disappear. Ill always feel that guilt, deep down.”
“Honestly,” I smiled in that strange, familiar way. “If anyones to blame, its me. I drove you off with my sharp tongue. After what I said that night, any man would have left.”
“I remember nothing unkind from you,” Edward insisted, shaking his head. “Only myselfI remember my own foolishness.”
“What do you recall, then?”
“I remember storming out in a temper, grabbing a suitcase and vanishing into the night. Regretted it soon enough, but too late, wasnt it?”
“I was glad when you left, if Im honest,” I laughed. “Thought Id start anewand I did, for a while and then I repented.”
“Really?” Edward asked softly, “So theres no grudge between us then?”
“None at all,” I said, and a sweet warmth rose in my heart, as if I were a girl again. “You know, Edward, you havent changed a jotapart from going grey. Move in. Truly. Ive a spare room and youd rather eat my meals than the inns sad suppers. After all, youre still family of a sort.”
“You wouldnt find me a nuisance?”
“If I did, do you think Id invite you? Evenings are so lonely they echo in this house.”
“Wellif youre sure,” Edward took my hand, timid as a boy. “Shall we fetch my suitcase from the inn?”
“The very same one you carried off all those years ago?”
We both burst out laughing and strode off side by side down the pavement, with a lightness as if wed never truly parted at all.
